Asia-Pacific

This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>>good evening. we find ourselves tonight in that period between
land fall
of a monster storm and then learning how bad it was when communications are back up. there is
reason to believe
though that entire portions of the
philippines
are cut off tonight and under water after a storm made landfall that's being described as the most powerful on earth ever to hit land. wind gusts at the core were with predicted at over 200 miles an hour. at that speed nothing can remain attached to the earth. waves were reported at 50 feet and higher. after passing through the
philippines
, the storm that has emerged on the other side is still more powerful than
hurricane katrina
was. this powerful explosion of nature is where we begin tonight. our report from correspondent angus walker in manila.

>> reporter: haiyan came howling ashore with winds topping 230 miles an hour. houses were torn apart. huge waves crashed ashore. a
tidal surge
flooded coastal areas. crew members on this barge had to abandon ship and struggled to get to shore. 12 million people live in the path of the storm. hundreds of thousands were forced to evacuate. that almost certainly saved many lives. but with power out and communications cut, an accurate death toll and a true scope of the devastation may not be known for days. do you think there are villages along the coast that have been completely destroyed.

>>yes, i think so. hopefully nobody died there.

>> reporter: the
philippines
is no stranger to big storms. it's seen two dozen this year, but nothing like this. the images have been spectacular. a composite photograph of the view from the space. the sharply defined
eye of the storm
at its peak. the gigantic pinwheel hurtling across the
philippines
toward
southeast asia
, a storm big enough to cover much of the
united states
. o are giant storms like this the shape of things to come from
global warming
?

>>warming could make these systems stronger. we don't know that that was the case here but this is the most powerful system to ever have made landfall on record snrk a storm more powerful than katrina, andrew, even
super storm
sandy. angus walker for nbc